


On the Importance of Adequate Cybersecurity Protocols for Aspiring Apocalypticians

by briarglades



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Jonathan Sims Gets Razzed For Being A Ninety Year Old Millenial, Vague Sasha Lives AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22397221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briarglades/pseuds/briarglades
Summary: Sasha has found something that may proveincrediblyuseful to the team's efforts at stopping the Unknowing—if they can manage to decode it.
Relationships: Sasha James & Jonathan Sims
Comments: 8
Kudos: 53





	On the Importance of Adequate Cybersecurity Protocols for Aspiring Apocalypticians

John is bustling around the archives filing away some papers, giving himself a bit of time to pretend he has a normal job in between the steadily increasing number of incidents making it abundantly clear that he absolutely _does not_ , when suddenly he finds himself being propelled by the elbow and almost overbalances before starting to jog to keep up with—with Sasha, who is excitedly babbling at him much faster than the mortal ear can comprehend. John, who often finds himself traversing beyond the bounds of mortal perception these days, makes out something about "hacking" a "list serve", but the eldritch essence of fear that decided he would be a great vessel of its power declines to explain any of what that might mean, and none of his stammering attempts to ask Sasha for clarification manage to penetrate her enthusiastic chatter.

Eventually, she reaches her desk, parks him to the side of her chair, then sits down and grabs him again, pulling him to lean over to see what, presumably, she brought him over to see. It's... incomprehensible. Perhaps a chain of messages? Some of the formatting seems familiar from Elias's interminable memos "Regarding Upcoming Internal Review" or "In Response To The Latest Intelligence On The Nature Of The Unknowing" (he doesn't even use title case right, not to mention how irritating it is to get back from being kidnapped to already find a smug bureaucratic summary of the story he managed to drag out of someone who was actively trying to kill him). But much as it resembles them, none of the writing is in—in anything he can even recognize, much less English. "What is this?" he asks.

"Oh my god, I _told_ you, I found the intra-organization email server that Nikola Orsinov is using to plan the Unknowing. This is a goldmine!"

John blinks. "Nikola Orsinov uses email?"

"I dunno," Sasha shrugs. "A lady of the changing times has gotta keep up! Not that you'd know," and she elbows him.

"For the last time, I am _three years younger_ than you, can we please leave that joke behind us?"

"When you stop putting air quotes around half the things I say because you don't know what a server is, I'll stop making fun of you for it. Maybe!"

Jon sighs. "Well. Thank you for finding this, I suppose." He returns to squinting at the runes laid out on the screen. Maybe... Hm. He picks out a line, concentrates on it, concentrates beyond concentration. He reaches, tries to bend the dreadful knowledges he's been chosen by to help him _know_. The end of the world is coming. He _must_ stop it. Sasha has gotten this for them, at what cost he does not know, but if he can help turn it to useful information—well. He must.

The shapes defy his efforts. They remain mysterious as he becomes more and more intent—until—"numberone@nikola.orsinov.great!", he shouts, then has to lean on Sasha's desk, wheezing to catch his breath.

"What?"

"numberone@nikola.orsinov.great," he repeats. "That's Nikola's email. I don't know if I can get more—that was. Draining."

Sasha stares at him. "You... just... you just tried to use your freaky eye powers to read these emails?"

"I—yes? I appreciate the effort you went to in order to retrieve these, but they're hardly much use to us if we can't read them. I know that they're not exactly 'ethical', but I do feel that stopping the Unknowing is an important enough cause—" He cuts himself off. Sasha has started laughing. "I'm sorry, _what_ is so funny?"

Sasha starts trying to explain, but keeps interrupting herself with her own laughter. "You—no, oh my god, oh wow—you were _just_ trying to tell me you were a hip youth like me—oh wow." She shakes her head and turns to the computer, a look of focus trying (and failing) to replace her delighted grin.

"What? What does that mean?" John demands petulantly.

"No, I'll just show you," Sasha shoots over her shoulder without looking away from the emails, which are now all highlighted in a nice light green. She moves to another, briefly blank, window—Word?—and pastes the runes in, before highlighting them again, moving the mouse to the font selector, and picking out "Times New Roman" with a showy _click!_

Suddenly, all of the text is in English. It's readable. John peers closer. It does seem to be the plans for the Unknowing. "This is incredible!" He turns to look at Sasha. "How did you _do this?_ "

Sasha looks both gleeful and gobsmacked. "John... It was in Wingdings. It was written in English, in Wingdings. I _just_ changed the font. You did _not_ have to try to bend your 'evil majjycks' to your mortal will to figure this one out! Man, Tim is going to _lose it_ when I tell him about this."

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by having been informed that originally, Tim was going to be the one who got eaten by the Not Them at the end of S1, rather than Sasha.
> 
> Please imagine: a few hours after the events of this fic, Not Tim unconvincingly fakes a fit of laughter, then abruptly heads out back to frantically send a message to HQ: "WE'RE COMPROMISED. THEY'RE ONTO THE WINGDINGS." Sasha sees this and goes "Hm."
> 
> (I put approximately zero thought into "when the actual canon anologue timeline of this would be", because I wrote this in an hour, it is a joke, and the math does _not_ work out at all. I hope you enjoyed it anyway.)


End file.
